Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S3 Episode 3: In conversation with Iain Dale
10 Plays5 months ago
Today we had the pleasure of being in conversation with Iain Dale. We talked to him about his latest book on dictators and their characteristics, as well as talking about what would make a good PM. Tune in to hear his thoughts on Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage and others.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Ian Dell
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Debatable Discussion podcast.
00:00:04
Speaker
Today, we're joined by a very special guest who John will now introduce.
00:00:08
Speaker
So yes, today we are joined by Ian Dell.
00:00:11
Speaker
Ian has had a truly fascinating career and has been a broadcaster, author and political commentator amongst many other things.
00:00:20
Speaker
Currently, he hosts a daily show on LBC and is also well known for having edited, compiled and written over 40 books.
00:00:29
Speaker
Ian, it is an honour to have you on today.
00:00:31
Speaker
Thank you for inviting me.
What Defines a Dictator?
00:00:33
Speaker
So we're going to start with the first question being related to one of your books.
00:00:39
Speaker
So what defines a dictator for you?
00:00:42
Speaker
And also, would you say there's a difference between a dictator and a tyrant?
00:00:47
Speaker
Oh, now that's a good one.
00:00:48
Speaker
Nobody's ever asked me that before.
00:00:49
Speaker
It's always good to start off with an original question.
00:00:53
Speaker
I mean, there are different forms of dictatorship.
00:00:56
Speaker
And one of the...
00:00:58
Speaker
What I was hoping to do in the book, and bear in mind we cover 64 different dictators right from ancient Rome through to the present day.
00:01:06
Speaker
Seven of them are still living.
00:01:08
Speaker
And it's 64 essays written by 64 different people.
00:01:12
Speaker
So I've actually only written one of the essays, but I chose the authors and matched them with the dictators.
00:01:19
Speaker
And what you learn very quickly from doing this process is that there are things that dictators have in common
00:01:25
Speaker
But there are some dictators that don't fit into a particular category.
00:01:31
Speaker
I think all dictators are authoritarian in some way.
00:01:35
Speaker
That's the thing that unites all of them.
00:01:38
Speaker
But you can go from benevolent dictatorship, which I would say, I mean, Lee Kuan Yew from Singapore,
00:01:45
Speaker
He was elected.
00:01:46
Speaker
I mean, many of these people were elected and continue to undergo elections.
00:01:51
Speaker
They weren't all just despots who abolished elections.
00:01:56
Speaker
Some were.
00:01:57
Speaker
I mean, Hitler, if you remember, in 1933 was elected under a sort of PR system, but then, of course, wasn't elected since then.
00:02:07
Speaker
But Augusto Pinochet in Chile, for example, was elected.
00:02:11
Speaker
He lost power through an election and his transfer of power was just how you would imagine in a democracy.
00:02:18
Speaker
So it's very difficult to pigeonhole them and say that they are all the same because they're just
Are Tyrants and Dictators the Same?
00:02:24
Speaker
not.
00:02:24
Speaker
And there are some who, I mean, a lot of them have secret police.
00:02:29
Speaker
They use torture.
00:02:30
Speaker
A lot of them had death camps and killed millions of people, but many of them didn't.
00:02:37
Speaker
So the difference between a tyrant and a dictator, I'm not sure there is one.
00:02:42
Speaker
I'm interested to check in sort of the dictionary definitions of both, because I would say that it was roughly the same, because you could say that all tyrants are dictators.
00:02:55
Speaker
But not all dictators are tyrants, I suppose.
00:02:58
Speaker
Maybe a tyrant is a sort of slightly exaggerated form of a dictator.
00:03:05
Speaker
Julius Caesar, for example, I mean, what was, I mean, I think he was almost self-described as a tyrant, but I mean, in modern day terms, I'm not sure you would describe him as that.
Benevolent Dictators and Democracy
00:03:16
Speaker
And I think it's quite an interesting point you made there about a dictator having the ability to almost be benevolent.
00:03:23
Speaker
And the idea that I think dictators probably very synonymous to us with those sort of evil connotations with authoritarian traits.
00:03:32
Speaker
But who would you say is the best dictator in your opinion, if there can be a benevolent dictator?
00:03:40
Speaker
Um...
00:03:43
Speaker
Well, I kind of go back to Lee Kuan Yew because I wasn't sure whether to include him in the book.
00:03:48
Speaker
He was definitely authoritarian, but did respect democracy.
00:03:54
Speaker
He, I think, did a lot of really good things in Singapore to the extent that Singapore is now one of the richest nations in the country.
00:04:03
Speaker
But it's sort of quite a repressive regime in terms of personal freedoms.
00:04:09
Speaker
Now, I think in many countries you have this trade-off between liberal freedoms and the power of the state.
00:04:17
Speaker
And not everyone in the world thinks that democracy is the best system.
00:04:23
Speaker
I mean, you look at Russia, for example, which is, if you go back in Russian history, Russia has never been a democracy.
00:04:30
Speaker
And if you've never had a democracy, you've
00:04:34
Speaker
Why should you automatically assume that it's better than what you already have?
00:04:39
Speaker
Some countries, I think, are almost temperamentally better suited to non-democracies.
Western Intervention in Non-Democratic Countries
00:04:47
Speaker
And I think that's where the West has made a mistake, certainly in the last 30 or 40 years, imagining that we're bringing freedom and democracy to the rest of the world and they all want it.
00:04:57
Speaker
Well, they don't.
00:04:58
Speaker
And I think that's something that we've learned over the years.
00:05:01
Speaker
I think you've made a really good point there about how some countries maybe would benefit from having a more authoritarian style of leadership.
00:05:10
Speaker
And on the back of that, do you think, could you give us some examples, some modern day examples of countries like this, where off the back of Assad falling in Syria?
00:05:21
Speaker
And I think it just ties in very nicely with that.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to be absolutely fascinating to see what happens in Syria, because I think the fear is that it will become another Iraq, where you have all sorts of different groups vying for power.
00:05:34
Speaker
And it just becomes a tinderbox.
00:05:36
Speaker
And I think that is, unfortunately, the most likely outcome.
00:05:40
Speaker
It would be wonderful if there was some sort of, I don't know, Nelson Mandela type figure that emerges in Syria that can really lead them into a new promised land.
00:05:50
Speaker
The guy whose name I now, Mr Jelani, who's head of HTS,
00:05:56
Speaker
He's talking a good game in being a more liberal presence and wanting calm and peace and all the rest of it.
00:06:05
Speaker
But you sort of hear anecdotes on the ground that he's still, I think somebody, a woman asked for a selfie with him the other day.
00:06:14
Speaker
And he said, yeah, if you cover your head.
00:06:17
Speaker
which, I mean, okay, one little anecdote doesn't mean to say that he's going to revert to be like the Taliban.
00:06:23
Speaker
But, and it's a really difficult one for Western countries.
00:06:29
Speaker
I mean, do we do what we did after the bombing of Libya and just stay out of it, where we were asked to stay out of it by the various different factions in Libya, saying, oh, we'll sort it out for ourselves, thank you very much, and then look what happened.
00:06:43
Speaker
So do we have a real hands-off approach now and just sort of wait and see what happens?
00:06:48
Speaker
And then if it does all turn out reasonably well, then we go in with lots of money and helping to rebuild Syria.
00:06:56
Speaker
I mean, it's a very difficult thing for the international community to work out what to do and in what time scale.
00:07:03
Speaker
So, I mean, Syria is going to be fascinating to watch during, I mean, it will be one of the stories of 2025, what happens in Syria.
00:07:12
Speaker
Just to add on to that, what do you think the West should do then?
00:07:15
Speaker
Because obviously HTS aren't really open really to any Western intervention in Syria.
00:07:22
Speaker
And I think with the West coming in, there could potentially be, as you said, like, has Syria ever really had a democracy?
00:07:30
Speaker
No.
00:07:30
Speaker
So if we're trying to impose democratic values, they may simply not want it.
00:07:35
Speaker
So what do you think the West should do in regards to Syria?
00:07:39
Speaker
Well, I think if there's any evidence of huge atrocities being carried out by whatever new regime exists, then you have a choice to make.
00:07:48
Speaker
But until then, I'm not sure I see any advantage in the United States or indeed the international community more generally.
00:07:58
Speaker
intervening in any way whatsoever.
00:08:01
Speaker
I see no appetite for that among anybody.
00:08:04
Speaker
I mean, the fact that Donald Trump is about to become president, he's notoriously hands off in these situations.
00:08:11
Speaker
Even though you sort of think temperamentally Donald Trump would want to
00:08:15
Speaker
sort of exert US power.
00:08:16
Speaker
If you look at the four years of his previous presidency, he didn't really do that.
00:08:22
Speaker
And you could argue that his foreign policy was actually relatively successful in some ways, partly because of his unpredictability.
00:08:33
Speaker
And if foreign leaders don't know what you're going to do, I mean, that can be an advantage and a disadvantage.
00:08:39
Speaker
And I think in his case, in those years, it was a positive advantage.
Keys to a Prime Minister's Success
00:08:45
Speaker
Perfect.
00:08:46
Speaker
So now moving a bit back into the UK and the politics of the UK, you've obviously written a lot about prime ministers.
00:08:57
Speaker
So what have you noticed?
00:08:59
Speaker
What are some traits that good prime ministers have and what are some common traits that not as successful prime ministers have?
00:09:06
Speaker
Timing and luck, I would say, are the two things that, I mean, when I was your age,
00:09:14
Speaker
Margaret Thatcher had just taken over from James Callaghan, the Labour Prime Minister.
00:09:18
Speaker
He had been in power from 1976 to 1979.
00:09:21
Speaker
And in theory, he should have been one of our greatest prime ministers.
00:09:26
Speaker
He'd been Home Secretary, he'd been Foreign Secretary, he'd been Chancellor.
00:09:31
Speaker
But he was very unlucky to come into power in 1976 when the economy was on its feet.
00:09:39
Speaker
or on the floor rather, trade unions effectively ran the country, which it seems difficult to imagine now.
00:09:45
Speaker
But when I was, well, how old was I in 1976, 13, 14?
00:09:47
Speaker
And all I remember were strikes.
00:09:55
Speaker
And I just kept thinking, there must be something better than this.
00:09:58
Speaker
This cannot be normal.
00:10:00
Speaker
Where there were no strike ballots.
00:10:02
Speaker
There would just be mass meetings and people would put up their hands, usually both hands, on the side of coming out on strike.
00:10:09
Speaker
There'd be wildcat secondary picketing in companies that had nothing to do with the strike.
00:10:17
Speaker
And I remember going on a school exchange trip to Germany and they were laughing at us.
00:10:21
Speaker
I mean, we were called the sick man of Europe.
00:10:24
Speaker
And...
00:10:26
Speaker
Callaghan, I mean, was not in a position really to do much about it because of the power of the unions.
00:10:34
Speaker
And we, at that point, everyone thought he was a terrible prime minister.
00:10:38
Speaker
Now his reputation has been slightly rehabilitated since, but he was unlucky to become prime minister then.
00:10:47
Speaker
And because of the timing and the same in a way with Gordon Brown, where he came in at the tail end.
00:10:53
Speaker
Well, Tony Blair had been the prime minister for 10 years and it's always difficult to follow a long serving prime minister as John Major found out with Margaret Thatcher.
00:11:02
Speaker
And everyone thought that Gordon Brown had an agenda, that he knew what he was going to do.
00:11:08
Speaker
But it turned out he hadn't got an agenda.
00:11:11
Speaker
And although the first three months of his time in power, even I, as somebody on the right, was thinking, wow, he's really good.
00:11:18
Speaker
And then he made the decision not to have a general election.
00:11:21
Speaker
It all fell apart after that.
00:11:23
Speaker
And then, of course, there was the world financial crash, which, to be fair to Gordon Brown, he was a real leader of the world in the response to that.
00:11:33
Speaker
But nobody really appreciated that in this country because he wasn't a very good communicator.
00:11:39
Speaker
He could communicate things to other world leaders.
00:11:42
Speaker
And I remember Nicolas Sarkozy really deferred to Gordon Brown, which for a French president to do that with a British prime minister was very unusual.
00:11:50
Speaker
Obama did as well to an extent.
00:11:54
Speaker
And I think that history will be much kinder to Gordon Brown than voters were
Tony Blair's Legacy
00:12:00
Speaker
at the 2010 election.
00:12:00
Speaker
So,
00:12:03
Speaker
Whereas Margaret Thatcher, she was incredibly lucky.
00:12:06
Speaker
She came to power at the right time.
00:12:10
Speaker
And her biggest break, I think, was when the Russian media dubbed her the Iron Lady.
00:12:17
Speaker
That was two years into her leadership in 1977.
00:12:22
Speaker
And she really played off that for the rest of her premiership because there'd never been a woman before.
00:12:27
Speaker
leader of a political party in this country before, let alone a woman prime minister.
00:12:32
Speaker
And she knew that she'd only have one chance and she had to win the election whenever it came.
00:12:38
Speaker
And in the end, she was able to use that reputation as an Iron Lady to her benefit.
00:12:44
Speaker
She was lucky in the 1980s when the opposition was split.
00:12:48
Speaker
You had the Labour Party and then the SDP Liberal Alliance.
00:12:52
Speaker
So that split the opposition vote to her, which enabled her to get a huge majority in both 1983 and 1987.
00:12:57
Speaker
I'm not sure I can say she was lucky that the Argentinians invaded the Falklands, but you kind of know what I mean by that, because that enabled to demonstrate in real time how tough she really was.
00:13:11
Speaker
A sort of blessing in disguise almost.
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:14
Speaker
Well, people say that she only won the 1983 election because of the Falklands, which is a complete myth.
00:13:19
Speaker
She was already gaining in popularity before the Falklands were invaded.
00:13:23
Speaker
She was very lucky that Michael Foote was the Labour leader.
00:13:26
Speaker
People couldn't imagine him as Prime Minister.
00:13:29
Speaker
So there were lots of reasons why she got a landslide in 83.
00:13:32
Speaker
It wasn't just because of the Falklands, although that was a contributory factor.
00:13:38
Speaker
So I think she's a good example of a lucky prime minister.
00:13:43
Speaker
You come forward to the more modern age and, I mean, Liz Truss was certainly not a lucky prime minister.
00:13:52
Speaker
Rishi Sunak certainly wasn't.
00:13:54
Speaker
Boris Johnson, you could argue it both ways in some ways.
00:13:59
Speaker
And Keir Starmer, you would have to say that he was lucky in that he won a landslide with such a small percentage share of the vote.
00:14:07
Speaker
But I think that's given him a real hostage to fortune.
00:14:13
Speaker
I mean, I can excuse Labour's lamentable performance in the first five months because they haven't got much experience with government.
00:14:20
Speaker
They don't know how to pull the levers of power.
00:14:23
Speaker
But if they don't get their act together pretty quickly, that shallow majority will be seen to be even more shallow than people think it is, I think.
00:14:34
Speaker
So obviously there you mentioned many prime ministers, some great, some not.
00:14:39
Speaker
Who in the 21st century would you say has been our best prime minister?
00:14:44
Speaker
I mean, it's obviously been quite a tumultuous sort of century so far in politics, but who do you say has been the best in the 21st century?
00:14:53
Speaker
Well, I suppose it depends by what metrics you judge them.
00:14:57
Speaker
And I would probably say Tony Blair in the sense that he...
00:15:04
Speaker
became a world figure.
00:15:07
Speaker
The economy did well under Tony Blair.
00:15:11
Speaker
People quite liked him.
00:15:13
Speaker
Okay, people say, yes, but the Iraq war, blah, blah, blah.
00:15:17
Speaker
And yes, that turned out to be a huge mistake.
00:15:21
Speaker
But in terms of reputation, I think historians will look back on the first quarter of the 20th century and see Blair as the dominant figure because Keir Starmer is in many ways following or trying to follow in the footsteps of Tony Blair, using a lot of the same policies, using a lot of the same personnel.
00:15:42
Speaker
I mean, we're talking on the day after Peter Mandelson was announced as the new British ambassador to the United States.
00:15:49
Speaker
So I think you'd have to say Tony Blair.
00:15:52
Speaker
I think David Cameron was a good prime minister.
00:15:55
Speaker
Most prime ministers are remembered in the history books for one thing, Lord North losing the American colonies.
00:16:03
Speaker
So automatically a very bad prime minister.
00:16:05
Speaker
However, if you look at Lord North's domestic record, he was very successful, but nobody ever remembers that because of the American thing.
00:16:13
Speaker
Churchill for the Second World War, Thatcher, the Falklands or trade union reform, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Rishi Sunak, Covid, even though, of course, he was chancellor during that period.
00:16:27
Speaker
So I think that
00:16:32
Speaker
It's a bit shallow to only remember a prime minister for one thing, but that was part of the reason why I did the book, because even as a political geek, I hadn't actually heard of some of our prime ministers from the 18th century.
00:16:44
Speaker
Have you heard of Lord Shelburne?
00:16:45
Speaker
Lord Bute?
00:16:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:51
Speaker
sort of putting together these 55 essays, you could sort of read the basics about each one.
00:16:56
Speaker
And then if there was a particular one that got your interest, you can then go and read a full biography of them.
00:17:02
Speaker
And I think given everyone nowadays has the attention span of a flea, these style of books where you'll happily read 10 or 15 pages about somebody, but you don't want to read an 800 page biography.
00:17:14
Speaker
I think these kinds of books are sort of almost of their time.
00:17:18
Speaker
Do you think Blair will be remembered for Iraq?
00:17:23
Speaker
Or do you think there's going to be another one of his policies?
00:17:26
Speaker
No, he will predominantly be remembered for Iraq.
00:17:30
Speaker
So then you can say, well, how can you say he's the best prime minister of the first part of the century?
00:17:34
Speaker
Well, because I don't just remember him for Iraq.
00:17:38
Speaker
I think that...
00:17:40
Speaker
He was one of the few Labour politicians able to appeal to Conservative voters.
00:17:45
Speaker
I can remember the night of the 1997 election when he won that landslide, about four o'clock in the morning, driving along the embankment, and I could hear all this music blaring out from the other side of the river at the Southbank Centre.
00:17:59
Speaker
And he had just arrived, and those sort of things can only get better blaring out.
00:18:03
Speaker
And I stopped the car and listened to this and just said to my partner,
00:18:08
Speaker
You know, I think Blair's going to be okay.
00:18:10
Speaker
He didn't frighten conservative horses in a way that Neil Kinnock had.
00:18:15
Speaker
Conservative voters just couldn't see Neil Kinnock as a prime minister.
00:18:19
Speaker
They thought he'd be an embarrassment.
00:18:20
Speaker
They didn't feel that with Tony Blair.
00:18:22
Speaker
And I think that's really the mark of a...
00:18:26
Speaker
a good politician who can appeal across the divide.
00:18:29
Speaker
And I think David Cameron was able to do that in 2010.
00:18:32
Speaker
And the result was the coalition with the Lib Dems in a way.
00:18:37
Speaker
David Cameron was seen as an acceptable face of the Tory party.
00:18:41
Speaker
I mean, in retrospect, I think possibly some people regret seeing him in that way.
00:18:47
Speaker
But he was another one that you could just sort of see that he would fit the job of prime minister like a hand in a glove.
00:18:52
Speaker
And he...
00:18:53
Speaker
And he did.
00:18:55
Speaker
He was, I mean, he made a lot of mistakes as well.
00:18:58
Speaker
But then any prime minister who's in power for a length of time is going to make mistakes.
Potential Great Prime Ministers
00:19:04
Speaker
I think Margaret Thatcher was the best prime minister since the Second World War.
00:19:08
Speaker
But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that she didn't make some pretty horrific mistakes in her 11 and a half years.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:17
Speaker
So following on about prime ministers, who do you think is the best prime minister that we've never had?
00:19:25
Speaker
Interesting question, because I was discussing that only the other day.
00:19:27
Speaker
I did a podcast with Danny Finkelstein, the Times columnist.
00:19:32
Speaker
And I said to him, partly because I knew that he knew this person and that he'd worked with him.
00:19:38
Speaker
I said, Dr. David Owen.
00:19:40
Speaker
Now, how familiar are you with Dr. David Owen?
00:19:44
Speaker
I've heard the name, but I'm not sure who it is at all.
00:19:48
Speaker
Well, he hit the headlines in 1977 when he was a Labour MP, he was Health Minister in the Labour government, and the Foreign Secretary, Tony Crossland, died.
00:19:58
Speaker
And at the age of 37, James Callaghan promoted David Owen to be Foreign Secretary, which was a big thing because...
00:20:07
Speaker
Foreign secretaries in those days were usually fairly, I won't say aristocratic people, but fairly elderly.
00:20:16
Speaker
They were all of a type.
00:20:18
Speaker
So to promote this fresh-faced 37-year-old was a big thing.
00:20:22
Speaker
Then he became a member of the Gang of Four who left the Labour Party in 1981 to form the SDP with Bill Rogers, Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams.
00:20:32
Speaker
And he then became leader of the SDP and led them into the 1987 election alongside the Liberal leader, David Steele.
00:20:40
Speaker
Now, they had a pretty fractious relationship.
00:20:42
Speaker
And David Owen was one of these slightly chameleon figures who, although he was...
00:20:48
Speaker
more left than right, he did appeal to right-wing voters.
00:20:54
Speaker
And when the Liberals and the SDP split in 1988, he sort of drifted more to the right.
00:21:00
Speaker
And I think he became quite a supporter of John Major tacitly.
00:21:04
Speaker
He's gone back to the Labour Party now.
00:21:08
Speaker
But I liked his character.
00:21:10
Speaker
I got to know him a little bit.
00:21:12
Speaker
And he was a very sort of pugnacious politician, would call a spade a spade, didn't particularly mind who he offended, including people in his own party.
00:21:21
Speaker
He looked the part and he had lots of original ideas.
00:21:26
Speaker
And I think he, if you sort of drew up a list of 10 qualities that a good political leader has to have, he would have most of them.
00:21:35
Speaker
I mean, he had his deficiencies in that he did upset people needlessly sometimes, seen as a bit of a bully, I think.
00:21:42
Speaker
But generally, I think he would have made a really good prime minister.
00:21:46
Speaker
And for the Tories, likewise, who would you say was the best one they never had?
Future Conservative Leaders
00:21:58
Speaker
That is an interesting question.
00:22:03
Speaker
I mean, I feel as if I'm betraying the memory of Margaret Thatcher by saying this, but I think it would have been interesting to see if Michael Heseltine would have been a good prime minister.
00:22:12
Speaker
I'm not sure he would, but it would have been quite an interesting thing to watch.
00:22:18
Speaker
I think he was more interested in power for power's sake than
00:22:24
Speaker
He's got a new autobiography coming out in January, and I've already arranged to interview him for an hour, so I really want to sort of really press him on that, because apart from abolishing the poll tax, I'm not quite sure what he would have done differently to Margaret Thatcher, but he would have been a very stylish Prime Minister.
00:22:43
Speaker
So I'm not sure whether he would have been the best one, but I'm trying to think back in history.
00:22:49
Speaker
Possibly Joseph Chamberlain, of whom I don't know an awful lot, but he's a huge name from the late 19th century, early 20th century, big on, obviously, tariff reform.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:05
Speaker
Lord Curzon, possibly, if you think back to the 1920s.
00:23:08
Speaker
I mean, it would have been difficult for him at that point because he was obviously in the House of Lords.
00:23:12
Speaker
And even then, I think it would have been difficult to have a prime minister from the House of Lords.
00:23:17
Speaker
I mean, the other one I would say from the Thatchers is Lord Carrington, who he was her first foreign secretary, resigned over the Falklands War.
00:23:25
Speaker
He'd been defence secretary.
00:23:27
Speaker
And I remember there was speculation in 1981 when she was very unpopular, had introduced a really unpopular budget.
00:23:35
Speaker
There was speculation that he would be her natural successor, but he would have had to resign from the House of Lords and fought a by-election like Alec Douglas Holm did.
00:23:44
Speaker
So there are lots of books about the best prime ministers we never had.
00:23:49
Speaker
Francis Beckett wrote a good one.
00:23:51
Speaker
And it is a fascinating book.
00:23:54
Speaker
I mean, I think Penny Mordaunt, if she had prevailed over Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, I think she could have been a good prime minister.
00:24:06
Speaker
Not sure she would have won the 2024 election, but probably wouldn't have gone down to the catastrophic defeat that Rishi Sunak did.
00:24:15
Speaker
Now, looking towards the future, we obviously have had a change in leadership in the Conservative Party.
00:24:22
Speaker
How do you think that's going to work out in the future?
00:24:25
Speaker
What's the Conservative Party going to look like in five years' time, let's say, under Kemi Betonoc?
00:24:31
Speaker
Are we still going to have her as a Tory leader?
00:24:36
Speaker
Well, the honest answer to all those questions is I don't know.
00:24:42
Speaker
I think that Kemi Betonoc has it in her to be a really good leader.
00:24:47
Speaker
And I think it's hilarious that given that she was only elected, what was it on?
00:24:52
Speaker
Was it November the 30th?
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:56
Speaker
No, was it?
00:24:57
Speaker
No, November the 2nd.
00:24:59
Speaker
It was the weekend before the Trump election, wasn't it?
00:25:01
Speaker
So she has been in power for six weeks and already she's being written off.
00:25:07
Speaker
Now, if you think you have to learn the lessons of history.
00:25:11
Speaker
Margaret Thatcher, when she became Tory leader in 1975, was almost as unknown as Kemi Baden-Ock.
00:25:19
Speaker
She was not seen to have great political skills.
00:25:23
Speaker
She was useless at Prime Minister's questions for probably the first year or two.
00:25:28
Speaker
And there were lots of rumblings about her not lasting the course.
00:25:31
Speaker
Well, we all know what happened there.
00:25:32
Speaker
Now, I'm not comparing Kemi Badenock to Margaret Thatcher, but there are political similarities in the challenges that Thatcher faced and the challenges that Kemi Badenock faced.
00:25:43
Speaker
And I remember, I don't think I'm telling Taylor's out of court here, I used to have sort of text exchanges with Kemi during the leadership contest.
00:25:52
Speaker
And
00:25:53
Speaker
I've been writing a short biography of Margaret Thatcher, actually aimed at you two, because it's aimed at people who weren't alive when she was prime minister and maybe don't know an awful lot about her.
00:26:06
Speaker
My personal trainer, who's 26, when he found out what I did for a living, he said, now, Margaret Thatcher, I've heard of her, but what did she do?
00:26:14
Speaker
And I was, like, horrified by this.
00:26:17
Speaker
So this book, it's not meant to be an all-encompassing biography.
00:26:21
Speaker
It's only going to be 40,000 words, but it's meant to introduce her to a new generation.
00:26:26
Speaker
And I texted Kemi and I said, look, how much do you know about what happened to Margaret Thatcher when she was leader of the opposition?
00:26:32
Speaker
Because I think you can learn a lot of lessons from that period.
00:26:37
Speaker
And she immediately texted back.
00:26:38
Speaker
She said, oh, you mean the Stepping Stones document that led to all her economic reforms?
Nigel Farage and Political Dynamics
00:26:44
Speaker
You mean John Hoskins, who was one of her key advisors?
00:26:47
Speaker
And I thought, well, that's very interesting.
00:26:49
Speaker
Because, I mean, she was born, I think, in 1984.
00:26:53
Speaker
So she didn't experience that period.
00:26:56
Speaker
I thought it was very interesting that you should already be...
00:27:01
Speaker
have a bit of knowledge about what happened then.
00:27:03
Speaker
So I'm optimistic that she will sort of pull through.
00:27:08
Speaker
It's going to be a bumpy ride.
00:27:09
Speaker
She's only got 120 other MPs in her team.
00:27:10
Speaker
And
00:27:15
Speaker
We have a media that probably for the first year isn't really going to be that interested in the Conservatives, which gives her the opportunity to really start up some policy groups because there's no point in pronouncing on policy at the moment.
00:27:29
Speaker
The election is four years away.
00:27:33
Speaker
Nobody's going to be interested in new Conservative policies for probably another two or three years.
00:27:38
Speaker
So use that time wisely.
00:27:41
Speaker
And I mean, I hope she does see it through, because frankly, if she doesn't, and say Robert Jenrick then took over, and maybe he didn't succeed, and then they had to go for somebody else.
00:27:54
Speaker
I mean, the Tory party is going to look ridiculous come 2028, 29.
00:27:57
Speaker
You could say it does already, but it certainly would do then.
00:28:00
Speaker
And let's say the Labour Party fails to deliver on all the promises that they made, and they're showing every sign of doing that.
00:28:09
Speaker
That is going to leave the door open for Nigel Farage because he can say, look, these two old parties, they've let you down.
00:28:16
Speaker
I'm something new.
00:28:17
Speaker
I'm going to tell you the truth.
00:28:19
Speaker
He's got this ability to appeal to a very wide demographic of people.
00:28:24
Speaker
And, I mean, people call it populist.
00:28:28
Speaker
I'm never sure that that's an accurate word.
00:28:30
Speaker
I'm never even sure why the word populist is seen as a very bad word.
00:28:34
Speaker
It means popular.
00:28:35
Speaker
Well, I mean, perish the thought that politicians should have popular policies.
00:28:41
Speaker
But I wrote an article in the iNewspaper about two months ago where I said, look, this is the way that Nigel Farage could become prime minister.
00:28:49
Speaker
I said, don't laugh, everybody, but it could happen and this is how.
00:28:53
Speaker
And it was based on the Tory party not getting its act together and Labour failing to deliver on its promises.
00:28:58
Speaker
Well, here we are two months later.
00:29:00
Speaker
And I got ridiculed for that article.
00:29:02
Speaker
Well, people aren't ridiculing me for it now.
00:29:05
Speaker
And that leads quite nicely onto our last question.
00:29:09
Speaker
And that is, is it the beginning of the end of the Tories with Farage leading reform?
00:29:14
Speaker
And this, obviously, this question is coming a few days after Farage met with Elon Musk and Nick Candy in Mar-a-Lago to secure what could be potentially, I think, a hundred million dollar donation.
00:29:27
Speaker
So do you think it is the beginning of the end of the Tories and the new right wing party will be reformed?
00:29:35
Speaker
Well, I think it's too early to say.
00:29:39
Speaker
No political party has a divine right to exist.
00:29:43
Speaker
And the Tories have got to prove that they have a right to exist and they can only do that by getting extra votes in elections.
00:29:51
Speaker
I think it could be a defining era for the Conservative Party.
00:29:55
Speaker
People thought the Conservative Party in 1997 would never win an election again.
00:29:59
Speaker
There have been various other periods in history where that's been the case, but they've always bounced back.
00:30:06
Speaker
Now, that might not happen this time, particularly because there is a challenger party on the right.
00:30:11
Speaker
But
00:30:13
Speaker
If the Conservative, I mean, say the Conservative Party, for whatever reason, didn't exist now, where would existing Conservative Party voters go?
00:30:21
Speaker
Now, I don't believe they would all go to reform.
00:30:26
Speaker
I mean, I'm somebody who is quite right wing on economic policy.
00:30:31
Speaker
but sort of dripping wet on immigration, on social issues.
00:30:37
Speaker
So I think I'm a classic.
00:30:40
Speaker
If I was in Germany, I wouldn't be voting for the Christian Democrats.
00:30:43
Speaker
I'd be voting for the FDP, which is the Liberal Party in Germany.
00:30:48
Speaker
But they're actually quite a Thatcherite party, very dry, free market economics, but very socially liberal.
00:30:55
Speaker
So that would be my kind of Conservative Party.
00:30:58
Speaker
And if there was PR, if we had PR in this country, which I don't agree with for Westminster elections, but if we did have that, I think you would find a new sort of party on the right emerging with those kind of credentials.
00:31:14
Speaker
So where would I go?
00:31:15
Speaker
Would I go to reform?
00:31:17
Speaker
Would I go to the Liberal Democrats?
00:31:20
Speaker
I mean, I often get criticised on Twitter and say, oh, why don't you bugger off to the Liberal Democrats because that's what you really are.
00:31:26
Speaker
And I say, well, I don't agree with the Liberal Democrats on most of their major policies.
00:31:30
Speaker
So why would I support them?
00:31:31
Speaker
I don't.
00:31:32
Speaker
I'm not pro going back into the EU.
00:31:35
Speaker
I don't believe in proportional representation.
00:31:37
Speaker
I think their policy on gender identity is appalling.
00:31:41
Speaker
Their policies on net zero, I think, are far too extreme.
00:31:46
Speaker
So why on earth would I either vote for or join a party where I disagreed with most of their main policies?
00:31:53
Speaker
I could never vote Labour.
00:31:56
Speaker
I don't think I could ever vote reform in their current guise, particularly with their obsession with immigration.
00:32:03
Speaker
So I don't know what I would do is the honest answer.
00:32:07
Speaker
And I think there'll be a lot of sort of centrist conservatives who would find that a bit of a dilemma.
00:32:15
Speaker
And there's no guarantee that reform will still exist in four years' time.
00:32:20
Speaker
I mean, at the moment, they're riding high.
00:32:21
Speaker
They're increasing their support in the opinion polls.
00:32:24
Speaker
But we all know what Nigel Farage can be like.
00:32:27
Speaker
He likes to be a dictator of his own party.
00:32:29
Speaker
He doesn't like a democratic system within a political party.
00:32:33
Speaker
I know enough people who've worked with him to know exactly what he can be like.
00:32:39
Speaker
if Donald Trump offered him some sort of position in his administration, would he then give it all up in this country and go to America?
00:32:47
Speaker
I suspect not, but there's always that possibility.
00:32:50
Speaker
I mean, they haven't professionalised their party operation to the extent that they will need to.
The Future of UK Political Parties
00:32:58
Speaker
There's always the risk of...
00:33:00
Speaker
huge embarrassment by some of the people that get involved in reform.
00:33:04
Speaker
And there could be some big funding scandal.
00:33:08
Speaker
I mean, no one knows.
00:33:10
Speaker
No one can predict what will happen over the next four years.
00:33:12
Speaker
So at the moment, I think Nigel Farage has got it all to play for.
00:33:18
Speaker
But we might be seeing a very different tune in two years' time.
00:33:22
Speaker
So that's what makes politics so interesting.
00:33:23
Speaker
I mean, everybody thinks that politics is now going to be really boring over the next few years.
00:33:28
Speaker
I doubt it very much.
00:33:30
Speaker
And you made quite an interesting point there about the Liberal Democrats and how you find them unsuitable.
00:33:37
Speaker
And I sort of, I totally agree with you in a way.
00:33:39
Speaker
I think Sir Ed Davey is a bit of this almost joking around sort of personality.
00:33:45
Speaker
He didn't really seem to be at all very serious in the election and his policies aren't really that professional, ready to run a country.
00:33:53
Speaker
So how would you predict the future of the Liberal Democrats?
00:33:56
Speaker
Do you think...
00:33:57
Speaker
they're just an option and they're always going to be just an option for voters who can't decide between the Tories and Labour?
00:34:03
Speaker
Or, yeah, how do you predict the future of the Lib Dems?
00:34:06
Speaker
Well, you've sort of rather dismissed them there, and I think slightly unfairly in a way, because they did get 72 seats, only 50 fewer than the Conservatives.
00:34:16
Speaker
And OK, in a way, he did have a very jokey election campaign, but it seems to have worked.
00:34:22
Speaker
I mean, you can't really deny that.
00:34:25
Speaker
Now, I'm slightly surprised that he keeps on with these stunts.
00:34:29
Speaker
I'm not sure that's really going to work over the next four years.
00:34:33
Speaker
But they have an opportunity, too, to become the main opposition at the next election.
00:34:38
Speaker
And you can't rule that out.
00:34:40
Speaker
You really can't.
00:34:41
Speaker
So that's going to be very interesting to watch.
00:34:46
Speaker
I have to say that on my radio show, I've had quite a lot of the new Liberal Democrat MPs on my show since July.
00:34:55
Speaker
Every single one of them has been really impressive.
00:34:58
Speaker
And I don't say that lightly.
00:35:00
Speaker
I mean, I can't say the same of all of the new Labour MPs that we've had on.
00:35:03
Speaker
Some have been impressive, but there are quite a few that have not been.
00:35:07
Speaker
And there are only 26 new Conservative ones.
00:35:10
Speaker
I've only met a couple of those.
00:35:12
Speaker
But the Liberal Democrats have an impressive lineup now.
00:35:15
Speaker
And if they can impress the electorate, if the media give them the airtime, which...
00:35:22
Speaker
I mean, they always complain that they don't get the airtime.
00:35:24
Speaker
Well, I think on our station, we probably give them more than any other.
00:35:28
Speaker
And I do that for a reason.
00:35:32
Speaker
If I like the people, if I think they're good people, if they talk a good game, even if I disagree with them, I'm going to have them back again.
00:35:40
Speaker
But if I have an MP who just sort of chants the latest Labour mantra or whatever, or the latest Tory mantra...
00:35:48
Speaker
I mean, people just switch off.
00:35:53
Speaker
And if you're interviewing a politician and they're just not... I mean, I had one Labour MP on.
00:35:59
Speaker
who was on my cross-question programme, so a sort of panel debate with four politicians.
00:36:05
Speaker
And he kept saying, you'd ask him for an opinion on a particular, I can't even remember what the subjects were now, and he would just say, well, I'm a loyal Labour MP, so I agree with the government line on this.
00:36:16
Speaker
I'm here to represent the government.
00:36:18
Speaker
And in the end, I just threw my hands in the air and I said, what is the point of coming on a programme like this if you're not willing to give an opinion?
00:36:26
Speaker
And it was incredibly frustrating.
00:36:28
Speaker
And there were too many of them, I'm afraid, that are doing that at the moment, almost as if they've been programmed.
00:36:35
Speaker
And it's just boring.
00:36:38
Speaker
And if the electorate switch off from you, there's no way back.
00:36:43
Speaker
I think there's definitely been a very good progress made by the Lib Dems in the fact that they've now become the third party party.
00:36:54
Speaker
battling with reform in a way that the Tories should be not only scared of the reform party and Nigel Farage, but also some liberal and more moderate Tories going over to the Lib Dems.
00:37:08
Speaker
But if you had to sort of choose who would be the best prime minister between Sarah Davy and Nigel Farage, who would you pick and why?
00:37:18
Speaker
Oh, without a shadow of a doubt, Nigel Farage.
00:37:20
Speaker
But you see, just me saying that is going to play into this narrative that I'm sort of somehow a reform publicist, because I wrote a piece this week on the woman who threw a milkshake over.
00:37:33
Speaker
Nigel Farage and said she's very lucky not to be in prison and it's a disgrace that he should have to live his life in fear of being attacked.
00:37:41
Speaker
I mean, his 24-hour security has to have because of all the threats that he gets and I don't think anybody should have to live like that.
00:37:48
Speaker
So I have a lot of sympathy for him on that point of view.
00:37:50
Speaker
But I mean, just by saying that, you then...
00:37:54
Speaker
you're then seen as a sort of Farage cheerleader, which I most certainly am not.
00:37:58
Speaker
I've taken on Nigel Farage on all sorts of issues, live on the radio.
00:38:02
Speaker
I mean, he used to do the radio show on LBC before me, so I'd see him every day.
00:38:08
Speaker
And I don't know if you remember, well, you'd have probably been at school at the time, but during the Brexit referendum, this breaking point poster, sort of all these Eastern Europeans about to flood the country again.
00:38:21
Speaker
And I took him to task on that live on air.
00:38:24
Speaker
So I'm not somebody who shrinks away from a fight with Nigel Farage.
00:38:30
Speaker
But if you're talking about who would make a good prime minister, I think he would make a much better prime minister than Ed Davey.
00:38:39
Speaker
Could you give us a couple of traits and reasons why?
00:38:44
Speaker
Because I think he connects with people in a way that most other politicians don't.
00:38:48
Speaker
He's not afraid to speak his mind.
00:38:50
Speaker
It gets him into trouble sometimes.
00:38:52
Speaker
But, hey, there are worse things than that.
00:38:55
Speaker
I may not like some of his policies, but he would be able to explain them to the electorate in a way that Keir Starmer has never been able to explain.
00:39:02
Speaker
Well, not just his policies, but his policy U-turns, which are just legion.
00:39:07
Speaker
And he's quite at home on the international stage.
00:39:14
Speaker
I think he has leadership qualities in a way that I don't think Keir Starmer has.
00:39:19
Speaker
I don't think Ed Davey has.
00:39:21
Speaker
I think Kemi Badenow does.
00:39:24
Speaker
And I mean, she's somebody who will speak her mind and is fairly blunt and sometimes it gets her into trouble.
00:39:29
Speaker
But don't most voters think that's a good thing?
00:39:33
Speaker
I mean, but then again, the media will pick up on anything she says, like this thing about she doesn't like sandwiches.
00:39:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:39
Speaker
As if that's somehow a bad thing that she says that she doesn't like something.
00:39:44
Speaker
I mean, she's telling the truth.
00:39:46
Speaker
I'm sure there are plenty of other people out there who don't like particular sandwiches.
00:39:49
Speaker
I mean, it's totally insignificant in the wider scheme of things.
00:39:53
Speaker
But you get people writing thousand word columns on what does this mean about Kemi Bedanoff's character?
00:40:00
Speaker
Dear, oh dear.
00:40:02
Speaker
I do agree with your point on despite what your views are on Farage, he is by far, I think, at the moment, the best political orator and the best publicist we have as a politician.
00:40:17
Speaker
And I think his publicity stunt
00:40:19
Speaker
are just an example.
00:40:20
Speaker
They were constantly throughout the election and they really connected with his voters in Clacton and across the UK.
00:40:28
Speaker
And I think those skills he had are really key to the rise of reform that we have seen.
00:40:34
Speaker
I think you're absolutely right.
00:40:35
Speaker
I mean, I've known Nigel since 2008.
00:40:38
Speaker
I published his autobiography.
00:40:40
Speaker
In fact, I published two of his books.
00:40:42
Speaker
And I would still say that of all the people I go to lunch with, he is the most entertaining.
00:40:49
Speaker
I mean, I like the guy.
00:40:51
Speaker
And again, people say, how can you possibly like Nigel Farage with some of the things he says?
00:40:56
Speaker
Well, I don't have to agree with somebody all the time to like them.
00:41:00
Speaker
I don't have to agree with them to find them good company.
00:41:03
Speaker
I find Owen Jones very good company.
00:41:05
Speaker
I like Owen Jones.
00:41:06
Speaker
Oh, my God, there, I've said it.
00:41:08
Speaker
I mean, you can like people from different parts of the political spectrum.
00:41:13
Speaker
And to me, that's the adult thing to do.
00:41:16
Speaker
I hate this siloization of politics where you're only supposed to listen to people that you agree with or follow people on Twitter that you agree with.
00:41:26
Speaker
What is the point of that?
00:41:28
Speaker
How can you have good public discourse?
00:41:31
Speaker
if you just talk to people from your own political standpoint.
The Value of Open-Mindedness in Politics
00:41:35
Speaker
I mean, believe it or not, I am capable of changing my mind.
00:41:39
Speaker
And if somebody convinces, whether it's Owen Jones or Nigel Farage or whoever, that actually I've made a mistake on some of my initial judgments, I'll happily do that.
00:41:48
Speaker
I've done phone-ins on LBC where I've started the hour giving a particular viewpoint and
00:41:54
Speaker
And then, I mean, homeschooling is one, which I've always thought is really lets down.
00:41:59
Speaker
In fact, I described it as tantamount to child abuse at one point.
00:42:02
Speaker
But you then listen to kids who've been homeschooled or parents who homeschool their kids.
00:42:07
Speaker
And by the end of the hour, you think, well, actually, you know, maybe they have got a point.
00:42:12
Speaker
So if you just...
00:42:14
Speaker
And I think it's more difficult for people of my age to admit this, because you have formed your views by my age, and you don't change them very often.
00:42:24
Speaker
You've got to be open to it.
00:42:26
Speaker
Otherwise, it's just a sterile debate.
00:42:31
Speaker
Perfect.
00:42:31
Speaker
Thank you, Ian, for a fantastic discussion today.
00:42:34
Speaker
It's been really sort of eye-opening to hear a bit more about dictators, politicians and the future of the UK.
00:42:43
Speaker
And I'd just like to thank you for being here with us this morning.
00:42:46
Speaker
Not at all.
00:42:46
Speaker
Really enjoyed it.